Of Air and Ground
by flecksofpoppy
Summary: After the party retrieves the Falcon from Daryl's tomb, womanizer-extraordinaires  oh irony  Edgar and Setzer have a conversation about friendship and hope. And clothes. And yes, I even managed to work in some humor. Edgar/Setzer.


Okay, deadcell is killin' me with these FFVI fic exchanges, but I have to admit, it's a lot of fun writing for a fandom that I haven't written before. And I enjoyed writing this, even though it was hard and required RESEARCH. The pairing, obviously, was Setzer/Edgar, and the prompts were a line of dialogue: _"What would you have done then, if you could have done it differently?"_ and a line found by opening a book to a random page and picking a sentence: _The significance of forgetting for the moral sensation was necessary._ In return, she wrote an excellent, SMOKIN' HOT, Seifer/Squall fic called _Leather_. Not gonna lie-I love myself some Seifer/Squall. ANYWAY.

So, this is for her. This fic is supposed to take place right after they retrieve the Falcon from Daryl's tomb. AND AWAY WE GO... 

* * *

><p><strong>Of Air and Ground<strong>

After the apocalypse, names were nothing but anagrams, and hope was silk flowers sent by a stranger. And then Celes was there, saying: _Edgar? You didn't lose your memory, did you?_

The significance of forgetting for the moral sensation was necessary. He needed something to believe in, outside of those he believed to be dead. Figaro had to be fortified, and in these times, it was his only hope. He pretended all the way through to the end.

And then, the wings had come with a bitter memory and a newfound resolve.

Setzer, and his tomb, and his airship, and his childhood love. Edgar wondered what it was like to have a childhood love, a past that extended beyond guilt and sacrifice. But he had found his brother anew in the old world, and for that he was grateful. Occasionally, he wondered if he had ever been a child. His father had been kind; but always planning, as a king must, as a king had to, even in death.

And then they were aboard a new airship with new hope and new directive. _I'm finally starting to feel like we have some hope._ Hope for a new future, a new world, with people he knew.

"You fall in love easily," Edgar had commented to Setzer nonchalantly. "First Maria, and then Celes. And all in a matter of minutes." They were down below in the quarters of the Falcon, waiting for first connection, wondering if everyone was still alive. Amazed that "everyone" meant something now.

"What can I say?" Setzer replied, adjusting his coat with as much bravado as a preening chocobo. "I've always been partial to blonds."

"I understand you've been draining your soul into a bottle for a year," Edgar said without judgment. "It makes me wonder what the others are doing."

Setzer just shrugged. "Don't model me as a measure on which to predict the actions of others, to try and foresee whether their dreams are still dreams. I never found my dreams in the soil," he said carefully, then smiled without teeth. "Not like you, King of Figaro."

Edgar snorted. "I've spent a lot of my life traveling under the surface," he said, but then looked at the other man, eyes flashing with amusement, "but she can move, if only on a single track. I like to think of myself as grounded."

Setzer hazarded a smile back, and his scars twisted strangely, a swirl of life that lived on the surface, in the air, through fire and memory. Edgar found suddenly that he couldn't blame Setzer for drowning in the bottom of a bottle; even he had his doubts when the world had first died. The desert stayed the same temperature now, both day and night, after the apocalypse; although nothing had ever grown there to begin with except the machines that Edgar raised from the ground. _Like flowers,_ his father had once commented. _One day, you'll build great things, Edgar. Both you and your brother._

"True," Setzer agreed. "You built that subterranean transit system?" No one could deny that Figaro Castle was an engineer's work of art.

"Yes," Edgar replied, "a fine piece of machinery, if I don't say so myself. And this," he said, gesturing at the ship around them, "also a fine piece of machinery."

Setzer faltered, just for a moment, and his mouth tightened imperceptibly. Edgar hastened to continue, "You rebuilt it yourself?"

"Yes," Setzer said quietly. "And then I buried it."

Edward nodded, his eyes fixed on the ground out of respect. "I see."

"But now," he said, encouraged, "it might be the only thing to see us through to the end."

"The end," Edgar laughed humorlessly. "Is that what we're fighting for?"

Setzer just shrugged. "I suppose so. We're all waiting to reach the end, are we not?"

Edgar just shook his head. Even after going under a different name for months, after fulfilling his sole goal of reclaiming his kingdom, he still had doubts. He hated himself for it; his brother seemed to have no doubts, even in the face of world obliteration, hoping, hoping, rescuing. Sabin, the strong man who didn't doubt the goodness of anyone.

In his worst moments, Edgar doubted; sometimes he even doubted Setzer and his intentions. Faith was a hard thing to come by these days, but even Edgar had to admit that Setzer's loyalty had not once wavered since joining them, ruined world or none, even if his desires were mercurial.

"But now," Setzer said, his voice wrenching Edgar out of his reverie, "I'm simply here to fight. I don't know what for, but I am."

Edgar shivered. "Maybe there's nothing else to do except get drunk."

Setzer nodded behind him, "Perhaps. But I'm starting to change my mind. Don't change yours too and make me lose hope."

Edgar turned away, but he could hear Setzer behind him, running a hand over the smooth metal wall of the ship.

"The Falcon. It's the perfect name," Edgar finally said, staying where he was, not turning to look at Setzer. "The way she dives so smoothly, like her namesake. And now appropriately," he could hear the sound of Setzer's hand falling from the wall, "it has prey to follow."

"Kefka," Setzer said darkly. There were footsteps, and then warmth at Edgar's back. "When did you decide to start fighting again?" he asked, his voice hushed but even.

"I never stopped," Edgar replied immediately, tensing his shoulders. Nimble fingers, skilled in the art of debauchery, skimmed along the silk ribbons in his hair. No other touch, and then he felt them come undone. He still didn't turn around.

"I did," came the response. "I lost myself in the bottom of a bottle. I never thought to search, like Celes and you. And then you found me." Edgar could hear a slight shake of Setzer's head, though he didn't know whether it was in rebuke for his own inaction or disbelief that they had sought him out at all.

"You know where Celes woke up," Edgar said, "don't you." It wasn't a question.

"No," Setzer replied. Edgar wondered if he was lying. "Nor do I want to. We all woke up in our own personal hell. Let's not re-hash...unpleasantries. Not now."

"You're looking for new pleasantries?" Edgar's voice was smooth, the voice of a womanizer used on another womanizer. It was strange, yet somehow satisfying and new. Revitalizing.

"Are you?" Typical of a gambler, testing the odds, seeing how far he could push it until he ended up with more scars on his face, and really not caring about the result so much as the process.

"Perhaps," Edgar responded cryptically, smiling for his own benefit. Then Setzer trailed one of the pilfered ribbons along his neck; it whispered over his skin lightly, playfully, purposefully.

"Between you and I," Setzer observed, "there are at least six layers of fabric here."

"And what makes you think that I plan on removing any?" Edgar replied, and his smile grew wider. He grabbed the ribbon, pulled it out of Setzer's grip over his shoulder, and twined it in his fingers.

There was a rustle of velvet, metal, belts, the sound of soft materials being unknotted, and then the loud noise of it all dropping to the floor. It was time to turn around.

Edgar faced Setzer with a smile frozen on his face; the other man's scars looked like constellations shooting over skin, fine white lines that somehow failed to ruin his features. He was wearing nothing but his pants and a shirt now-white, well-worn, not fine or delicate, smelling of sweat and alcohol, of the new world. Edgar breathed it in, and sighed. He pulled the hair ribbon tight around his fingers from where he had woven it.

"If I had known you liked to be tied up," Setzer purred, eyeing the ribbon, "I would've kept it." He smiled at him again, then wrapped an arm around Edgar's waist and pulled him close. Their faces were inches apart, two men, two sets of breath mingling, heavy now, hot, wanting.

"Is this what it comes down to, in this world?" Edgar breathed, his eyes dark.

Setzer released him and laughed, pulling away, seeming genuinely amused at Edgar's reaction.

"Oh, come now, King Figaro," he shook his head, still smiling, unbuttoning his shirt without a hint of self-consciousness. "You mean to tell me, that with all of your womanizing and debauchery and reputation, you never once indulged in this?"

Edgar just looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "Castles don't impress men. Unless they want to fight for you or follow you."

Setzer was on him in an instant, close again, and he breathed, "What if they want neither of those things?"

Edgar took a harsh breath in. "Then..."

"Then," Setzer replied confidently, "perhaps they only want what's under all of those waistcoats and hair ribbons and silk. Has anyone ever followed you under the ground, wept in the dark places of that desert that you love so?"

Edgar's look hardened, regarding Setzer with a flash of disdain, fading immediately into the tactful countenance of someone trained in the ways of society. "Only the prisoners."

"Their cries often reached your ears, I'm afraid," Setzer hazarded a guess, but his voice was no longer made of velvet. "Did they not?"

"...Sometimes," Edgar's voice lost its edge. "Occasionally," he admitted, "I would sit in the cells when the castle moved through the earth. I wanted to know..."

"What it felt like?" Setzer said quietly, his touch gentle now as he clutched at Edgar's waist again, this time venturing under the first layer of the cloak. "What it was like in the rumbling dark?"

"Now we all know," Edgar breathed.

Setzer kissed him, leaning forward, all hot breath and rough skin, hand tightening at the small of his back under the gold-trimmed blue cape, over the velvet waistcoat, shirt, other things hiding there, other things Setzer knew were under the surface. Moving parts more complex than Figaro Castle, than the tracks that straightened themselves under sand, than the paths carved through dirt and invention. He knew, as his hands confirmed that Edgar Roni Figaro was in fact alive, that in a world without magic, without the Empire, machines and their turbines would always live.

"Yes," he said, breaking the kiss, "we do."

"Take off my clothes," Edgar breathed harshly, averting his eyes to stare at the wall that Setzer had touched before, so smooth and metallic that its smooth contours hurt his eyes.

"Is that what you say to all the girls you bed?" Setzer said softly, grinning. Edgar just kept his eyes where they were, but smiled smally.

"No," he said, "but that's what I say to the men that do."

"The man?"

"Yes," he admitted, "the man."

"Should I feel special?" Setzer asked playfully, slipping the cape off of Edgar's shoulders and letting it fall to the ground.

"No," he replied honestly. "You should feel lucky."

"I do," Setzer said, no sarcasm present. "As I said before, I've always had an affinity for blonds."

"I see," he replied, then pressed his face against Setzer's shoulder, close now, daring him to reject the touch. He could feel the bodily warmth; he hadn't been with a woman since the fall of the world.

"What would you have done then, if you could have done it differently?" Edgar asked curiously.

"Before the end of the world?" Setzer replied after a few beats.

"Before the end of the world, before now, before the things that you regret, or after," Edgar replied, slipping his fingers to unbutton the two remaining on Setzer's shirt.

A gasp, fingers tightening around his waist, then an answer, "I would have looked."

"For what?"

Bodies pressed together, Edgar's layers peeled off in all of their finery, smooth and strong and colorful, gilded, heavy. Just a shirt now, smelling of sand and dirt and hewn stones.

"For my friends," Setzer replied quietly, "for the tomb that this bird of prey came from, for my..." He stopped, looked uncertain, and Edgar nipped at his neck.

"Are we friends?"

Setzer's hand caught in Edgar's hair roughly and snapped his head back, then a hot tongue and sharp teeth were licking at his throat. He hissed and pressed his hips toward Setzer.

"Are we?" Edgar asked again, drawing away a little, but not breaking the embrace.

"Does it matter what I think?"

"It matters," Edgar continued, face perturbed, "what we all think. In this world."

"Would it have mattered in the last world?" Setzer said, looking skeptical and lustful at the same time.

"I don't know," Edgar replied honestly, "but right now, that's irrelevant. Things can never go back to the way they were."

"Such is life," Setzer mused, and for the first time, his voice was flat, without bravado.

Edgar kissed him again, pressed against him, and whispered, "Such is this life. I still love everything I did before the world was ruined. My love was not ruined. And if we are friends now, then we were friends before."

"You are not as fragile as I," Setzer said softly, kissing him back. "But..."

"Men fighting together is different than friends," Edgar said steadfastly. "Men fucking is different than friends."

"Yes, how true," Setzer agreed wryly. But he relished Edgar's words, his breath, his bright hair that shone so painfully in Daryl's ship. Setzer's throat tightened; the memories of the tomb, of the past, of the world before in which he had known sorrow as much as this one, threatened to strangle him.

"You are my friend, Setzer," Edgar said, "all of you are. This is what friendship is. This is what loyalty is, without complications, without bad memories, without a present that is unbearable because the people aren't there that you need to be."

"There's a reason that you are a king," Setzer replied cynically, "with your speeches."

Edgar pushed him against the wall roughly, wrapped his arms around him, lived up to his reputation as he heard a satisfying gasp out of the other man. "Setzer," he began, "you are my friend, and my reasons are sound. It's not a speech. But..." he added, a predatory look on his face that most women didn't often see out of him, in the bedroom or outside of it, "in here, right now, we are nothing but men."

"So what, King Figaro, are you planning?" he asked, devious again, voice devoid of the clipped emotion that it had possessed before.

"You like bets," Edgar replied, but didn't release his embrace. "Would you like to flip for it?"

"Why don't you use that coin of yours and see where it gets us," Setzer said, smiling.

"I think you already know," Edgar breathed against his neck, "what the outcome will be."

"I like to think that fate prevails no matter what," was the fast response. "Even over a double-sided coin."

"The fate of a kingdom rested on that coin," Edgar replied breathlessly. His fingers were twining in Setzer's hair now, pulling the slightest bit, and he could hear Setzer let out a heavy breath laced with voice. "And fate told me that it was my responsibility to accept the challenge."

"An unfair bet," Setzer replied.

"It was a bet I made," Edgar replied, leaning into Setzer's warmth now unabashedly. "I knew the outcome."

"A man who knows the future," Setzer said, and placed his hand on the back of Edgar's head, stroking through the long blond hair. "What a sad thought."

"Oh?"

"Yes," Setzer replied, "a tragic thought."

"Tragic," Edgar replied, "yes. Aren't we all?" His voice had a dark smile in it.

"Yes," Setzer echoed, "aren't we all." Then his hands seized Edgar's waist again, pulling him as close as possible, clever fingers working at his waistband of his pants and dropping them down. "Oh yes," he breathed, admiring the sight below him. "The emperor has no clothes."

"Wrong analogy," Edgar shuddered. "I have lots of clothes, just not here."

"Not here," Setzer echoed, hollow, "in the depths of a bastard ship reclaimed in death?"

Edgar tipped his face now, looking at Setzer, at the aggressive expression, the guarded eyes, the scars, the lips that were slightly swollen from kissing him.

"No," he replied, "in the depths of a ship that will save us all, and the world."

Setzer answered by kissing him again, slipping his fingers against Edgar's skin at the small of his back.

"Perhaps it's too late to save the world."

"No," Edgar said, hushed. "That's why we're here, in the depths of an airship."

"In the depths of a moving castle?" Setzer questioned, pushing his hips forward.

"Yes," Edgar gasped, "that's right."

"Not much for speeches now, are we?" Setzer's voice was amused, and he switched their positions, pushing Edgar against the wall.

"No," Edgar replied breathlessly, "not one for speeches."

With his back pressed against smooth metal, Edgar wondered about Daryl, wondered about her ship, this cold, hard, moving thing powered by blindly pumping turbines, much like Setzer's hips that were now trying to connect with Edgar's. Hips that were rhythmic, but not mechanical, not dictated by a machine.

Edgar could already imagine a world without magic as Setzer moved against him, and he felt himself wanting, yearning, for two bodies that were made of skin and blood and flesh to meet, different than all of the metal things he had invented, had known more intimately than a woman's blush and her body under sheets, different than a turbine pistoning to achieve nothing but a job well done.

"So," Edgar said, "do I need to flip the coin?"

Hands roughed up by piloting undid buttons, sent his shirt flying, pants already falling along his legs, and he did nothing but stand still.

"Your coin has nothing except a determined future," Setzer said indignantly, on his knees now, licking at Edgar's inner thighs. "Who are you? God?"

Edgar threw his head back, leaned heavily against the cold metal wall, and groaned. "Yes," he finally responded, "if you think so."

"I don't think so," Setzer's voice hummed along his skin, mouth otherwise occupied. "Not like your men, your followers."

"You dislike authority, don't you?" Edgar finally asked, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Setzer finally put a hand between his legs, and Edgar gasped. The touch was masculine, and he hadn't expected to feel the sparks.

"Only in the bedroom," Setzer replied noncommittally.

"Could've fooled me," Edgar said, and looked down at Setzer's silvery hair. He pushed his hands into it, pulled a little, getting a small noise in response for his efforts.

"Your legs are smooth like a woman's," Setzer commented, and Edgar pushed his cock into Setzer's face.

"Really?" he responded, "I prefer to think of myself as refined."

Setzer just groaned, and smoothed a hand over his thigh. "Soft." He said nothing else.

Edgar hesitated, enjoying the absurd banter. "And your mouth is-" he gasped as Setzer's mouth took his cock in. He just groaned, lashes fluttering, as his eyes closed.

Then abruptly he grabbed Setzer's hair and yanked him up. "Women," he said, low and harsh, looking Setzer straight in the eye. "Does this bring back memories of what it was like before?"

Setzer stopped, looked at him questioningly, surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Women," Edgar said again, goading him. "Have you been with any in this world?"

Setzer just stared at him, and decided not to answer. "What kind of question is that?"

"An honest one."

Setzer grinned darkly; Edgar saw the shadows, the scars, and he wondered what Daryl looked like in the other man's memory.

"Since we are friends," Setzer said softly, hissed really, "would you like to find out?" His breath was as sharp as a dagger.

"Yes," Edgar responded. "Yes."


End file.
